When I was saw this recipe by Mrs. Schwatz a few weeks ago, I knew I had to stop everything and make it immediately. Birthday Cake Batter Popcorn? Yes, please. As a lover of anything salty and sweet, I knew it would be a winner. Plus, it involved rainbow sprinkles. Enough said.

I made this the day before going on vacation, and had grand plans to take it with me in little plastic baggies for the flight.

Let’s just say it never made it that far.

Between munching all day while I worked and going back for “just one more kernel”, all I had left to fill my plastic baggies were popcorn seeds. Oops.

Here’s what ya need!

Simple yellow cake mix, some popcorn (I just popped one bag in the microwave), vegetable shortening, white chocolate chips and sprinkles. Five ingredients—it doesn’t get better than that!

The first step is melting your white chocolate. I just zapped this in the microwave in short thirty-second intervals until it was all melted. I think it took a minute and a half total.

And add cake mix! How fun is that? I would never in a million years think to add dry cake mix to melted chocolate. The recipe says to add 1 – 1 ½ cups cake mix, but I would err on the lesser side because it makes the chocolate mixture really, really thick.

Add this to the popcorn and use your hands to toss everything together—watch out, it’s gonna get messy! Don’t worry if you don’t get all the white chocolate cake batter clumps perfectly mixed in with the popcorn. It will harden anyway and work out just fine.

Now comes my favorite part: sprinkles! I love rainbow sprinkles and add them to anything and everything.

Let the popcorn cool and set to harden up a bit—if you can stand it to wait, that is.

Ta-dah! How fun and festive is that?

I love taking a perfectly healthy snack like natural popcorn and dumping chocolate and cake mix on it, don’t you?

If you want to be sneaky, you can put this in a bag, hide it in the bottom of your largest purse and hit up the movies with your girlfriends. You didn’t hear that from me though.

Editor’s note: If you need to visit her blog in stealth mode, perhaps while at work or in the middle of a boring meeting, you may want to switch off the audio in your machine. That way, no one will hear the distinct intro of “Land Down Under” start playing. On second thought, letting it play audibly might help explain things to people around you if you plan to sing along with the chorus and start belting, “You better run, you better take cover. Yeah!”

Sarah Bon 3.28.2012

Wow. That looks kind of amazing. If our girls beach trip works out this summer (please of please) I will definitely be making this as a road trip snack! I mean, how much more girly does it get that sprinkles?!

Andrea H.on 3.28.2012

Totally going to buy these ingredients TODAY! No birthdays in sight, yet this seems necessary, somehow.

LJMon 3.28.2012

FYI: Just wanted to let everyone know that not all cases of ecoli associated with raw batter are from from the raw eggs. Raw flour has also been linked to ecoli. Not trying to be a downer, just food for thought.

I will try the popcorn birthday cake next birthday ,have good day, boy it is sure earley. Jeannie

Sandion 3.28.2012

Feeling silly but asking anyway… did you use plain popcorn with no butter and no salt? That’s how it looks, and that is what I would think since you are coating it, but you said you like salty and sweet, and I don’t see any salt used.

Ooh how festive! You could also make them into popcorn balls and they’d be nice favors for a birthday party!

AmyBon 3.28.2012

I hate white chocolate but plan to try this today with dark and see how it tastes

Annon 3.28.2012

This is also yummy with almond bark (but the white chocolate would do as well) or white Candiquick and leftover crushed candy canes mixed in. Add a drop or 2 of peppermint oil (no cake mix) and mix into the popcorn. YUM!